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Family tree▼ (edit)
m. 14 May 1787
(edit)
m. 24 Jan 1813
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m. 23 Nov 1819
Facts and Events
[edit] ChildhoodCharles Grant was baptised on 20th September 1789 at Pagham on the Sussex coast, son of Phyllis Grant, formerly Marshall, and her husband Joseph Grant. Charles was the second of the couple’s three children, and their only son. In 1797, when Charles was about eight years old, his mother Phyllis died. [edit] Marriage to Lucy RichardsonOn 24th January 1813, aged about 23, Charles married a Lucy Richardson, who was probably around 16 years old. They married at Appledram, about five miles north of Pagham. Charles’s older sister Mary and her husband were the witnesses to the marriage. At the time of his marriage Charles was living at Sidlesham, the neighbouring parish to Pagham. Charles and Lucy settled in Sidlesham, having three children baptised there between 1815 and 1818: Lucy in 1815, Charles in 1816 and Henry in 1818. Each of the three children’s baptisms describes Charles as a labourer. Charles’s wife Lucy died shortly after giving birth to Henry; she was buried less than a month after his baptism, on 1st November 1818. She was only 22 years old. Baby Henry outlived his mother by a few months, but died when he was about five months old. Charles was therefore left a widower aged 29 with two surviving children to look after. In 1819 Charles was charged at the Quarter Sessions in Chichester with being the father of the then unborn child of a woman called Harriet Yates. It is not clear whether he was established to be the father or not – he was “discharged upon recognisances” which may suggest the court was deferring a decision but requiring him to return if needs be, or it may be that he acknowledged the child was his and the recognisances required him to pay its maintenance. The Quarter Sessions Rolls describe Charles as being 5 feet 4½ inches tall, with dark hair, blue eyes, a round face and sallow complexion and as being stout. He is also noted as having a scar on his middle right finger. Harriet Yates went on to have the baby, a girl called Frances, later that year. The baby was baptised at Sidlesham on 28th November 1819, with no father named on her baptism record. She died when she was only ten weeks old, being buried at Sidlesham on 21st January 1820. [edit] Marriage to Mary Ann ChafferJust over a year after Lucy’s death (and just a few days before Harriet Yates' daughter was baptised), Charles married again. His second wife was Mary Ann Chaffer, who was from Sidlesham. They married at Sidlesham on 23rd November 1819, when Charles was 30 and Mary was 22. Mary already had a son named George Chaffer who was about four years old when they married. Charles now became stepfather to George (who would sometimes use Grant as his surname throughout his life), whilst Mary became stepmother to Charles’s surviving children Lucy and Charles. Between 1821 and 1841, Charles and Mary would go on to have another eleven children together at Sidlesham. Most of the children’s baptisms described Charles as a labourer, with the exception of William’s in 1823 which called Charles a blacksmith, and Edmund’s in 1836 which called him a fisherman. All eleven children lived to adulthood. In 1823, Charles’s father Joseph died back in Pagham. In 1826 Charles gave evidence in a case involving the Coast Blockade Service, which been set up in 1817 to try and prevent smuggling and had a station at Pagham. It would seem that there had been some sounds of gunfire which the authorities were trying to investigate. Charles told them that there had been a wedding at Sidlesham, “and that it is usual when Persons of respectability marry to fire off guns by way of rejoicing”. Charles became a grandfather in 1835, aged 45, when his eldest daughter Lucy had her first son. Charles and Mary were themselves still having children at this time - they would have three more children after Charles was already a grandfather. By the time Charles’s youngest child, Fanny, was born, he was 52 years old. The 1841 census finds Charles, Mary and several of their children living in the Mill area of Sidlesham, close to the quay on Pagham harbour. Charles was described as a fisherman. They were still in Sidlesham in 1851 at a place called “Late Ransoms” (possibly named after a previous occupant) which seems to have been close to the Mill area. Charles was again described as a fisherman. Whilst all Charles’s children from his marriage to Mary Ann Chaffer survived to adulthood, several of them died as adults whilst Charles was still alive. His son Joseph died in 1851 aged 27, then Mark died in 1856 aged 22. Charles appears in the 1861 census living with Mary at Mill, still a fisherman. By this time only their youngest daughter Fanny was still at home, although they were also raising their late son Joseph’s daughter Emily. Charles’s son Edmund died some time between 1861 and 1864, and his son William died in 1862, aged 39. Then his son Stephen died in 1867, aged 37. In about 1867, Charles’s son Charles reappeared in Sussex after a long absence. Charles junior had been married in 1843 and had a daughter in 1844 at Portsmouth, not far from Sidlesham, but appears to have then gone abroad for over twenty years, abandoning his wife and daughter in Portsmouth. When Charles reappeared in about 1867 he had with him a son named Joseph Hendrie Grant, who was apparently in about 1858 in Baghdad in what was then the Ottoman Empire. Charles junior then died in 1868, aged 52, leaving young Joseph Hendrie Grant to Charles and Mary’s care. Charles died in 1870, aged 80, being buried at Sidlesham on 25th May 1870. Of his fourteen children, he had outlived half of them. In his lifetime, he had 58 known grandchildren born, although six of them died as children whilst Charles was still alive. A further 17 grandchildren would follow after his death. Mary outlived him by nearly nine years. References
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